Katsudon wa hito o shiawase ni suru

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Katsudon wa hito o shiawase ni suru (カツ丼は人を幸せにする)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🐷 Katsudon / 📍 Suitengumae/Kanda/Gotanda/Nishi-Azabu

📓 Visits: 4 (2022-2023)

Imitation is the best form of flattery and owner Ryutaro made no secret of the fact he got his inspiration for "Katsudon makes you happy" from Zuicho (review here), which has the highest Tabelog rating of any restaurant in Japan serving just katsudon.  The original restaurant opened in Suitengumae in February 2022 and was an immediate success and there are now three more branches.

At the Suitengumae honten (and I've only ever been there) there's almost always a queue.  It runs down fairly quickly but even when seated you might need to wait up to 15 minutes to actually be served, depending on how many people are waiting.

First you need to navigate the ticket machine, a picture of which I've annotated below.

The "special katsudon" is made from Tokyo-X pork and subject to availability.  There are different menu options at different branches so you'll need to figure out the system there yourself.  The basic "tojinai" katsudon is available at all branches but unless you go to Suitengumae you'll pay another 100-200 yen.

This is the standard katsudon with no changes:

If you're feeling hungry I'd recommend double egg and extra rosu:

Compared with Zuicho the katsu is thicker, the pork is more flavourful and better quality, the sauce is better and the egg is richer.  I love the fact you can have extra katsu.  In addition, the atmosphere is better (all the staff are upbeat), the queues are shorter at peak times and since Zuicho raised its prices by a whopping 50% it's cheaper.

I was considering scoring this restaurant 5.0 but you could imagine a better pork and better rice so it's not definitively perfect but you wouldn't get that for 1000 yen.  Zuicho might have a higher Tabelog rating right now but I'd wager "Katsudon" will eventually surpass it.  Ryutaro set out to imitate Zuicho but he made it better.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1302/A130204/13267984/ (Nihonbashi-kakigaracho)
📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1310/A131002/13276206/ (Kanda)
📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1316/A131603/13278075/ (Gotanda)
📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130701/13276072/ (Nishi-Azabu - open till 5am!)

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.1 (value: 5.0)

📱 Booking: No bookings.

💴 Damage: 1,000-1,400

⏱️ Time taken: 30-40m including queuing

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